Chapter 4 Summary

This chapter begins with a long history of sword-fishing in New England. It returns to the stories of the Mary T and the Andrea Gail.

New England sword fishermen, in the early 1800's, harpooned their fish. Things remained the same for decades until the invention of the longline ship and spotter planes. Spotter planes were first used in 1962 to locate fish. Canadians were the first to invent longline boats, also in the 1960s. The new boats created a boom in catching sword- fish that did not last long when the United States government detected dangerous levels of mercury in the fish.

It was not until 1978 that the United States government relaxed standards for mercury. This created another boom in the 1980's when hundreds of longliners were fishing and using millions of hooks. Soon officials began to worry about the ocean getting depleted and...